February 25, 2007

Welcome to Issue #259 of the Internet Legal Research Weekly, a newsletter that delivers relevant and timely legal research information, and other fun stuff, to your inbox every Sunday. If you like what you read, please forward this newsletter to anyone you think might be interested, and encourage him or her to do the same! To subscribe, all you have to do is visit Inter Alia and fill out the subscription form -- it's free!

Create PDFs on the fly, for free
Don't have Acrobat, or don't happen to have it on the computer you're using right now? Try ExpressPDF, a site that will convert your Word or Excel document, or web page, to PDF. Nothing fancy here, but it's free.

A Cool Map "Aggregator"
Not sure which of the online mapping services best meets your needs? Check out Flash Earth, which allows you to switch between any of 8 different mapping sites, including Google Maps, Microsoft Virtual Earth, Yahoo!, Ask, OpenLayers, and NASA. The differences are subtle, but interesting.

Your Disposable Phone Number for the Web
Here's an interesting concept: you decide to sell something on eBay, or post a classified ad on Craigslist, and you don't want your real phone number floating out over the Internet. Enter Craigsnumber -- it's a temporary phone number you can use when listing online. You can specify a number in 16 cities, or just accept the San Francisco area code. Tell Craigsnumber how long you want the number to last -- from 1 hour to 1 month -- and your phone number, and you're set. Whenever your Craigsnumber gets a call, it will be forwarded to you automatically. And don't worry, the folks at Craigsnumber won't sell, rent or lease your phone number to third parties.

Plan your Day with Zoho
I'm quickly becoming a big fan of the Zoho line of productivity tools -- it seems like every week they're rolling out some great new site, and most of them for free. This week, I want to talk about Zoho Planner, which literally acts as your online day planner. Keep your appointments, notes, and to dos all in one place. You can also upload attachments to your Planner, and share your planner with other people.

Zillow's Real Estate Wiki
Zillow is an interesting real estate site, that allows you to view properties and see their approximate value. The site's latest project is the Real Estate Wiki, described as "a real estate guide for you, by you." There's both a Buying and Selling Wiki, with tons of helpful articles on the process. And you can contribute to the articles, just like everyone else.

Blawgs of the Week
Here are some of the great law-related weblogs featured on Inter Alia this past week:

Here's a mobile security tip for you, to make sure your laptop is secure whenever you have to leave it alone for more than a few seconds. First, make sure your laptop asks you for a password every time it resumes from standby or locked mode -- go to the Control Panel, then Power Options. Select the Advanced tab, and make sure the box is checked next to "Prompt for password when computer resumes from standby." Then click OK.

Whenever you step away from your laptop, make sure it's either in standby mode, or locked -- either way is easy. To put the computer in Standby mode, just go to Start, then Shut Down, then Standby. To lock it, just press the Windows key + L.

These tips aren't just for laptop security -- they work for those of you with desktops, too.

Do you have a question about searching the Internet or your computer in general? Drop me an e-mail at tom(at)inter-alia(dot)net – I’ll post your question (don’t worry, I won’t use your real name) and try to get an answer for you!

New Jersey Public Records and Archives
This site may only be useful to New Jersey residents, but it's also helpful to anyone doing historical research that concerns New Jersey. Most of the resources here deal with the operation of the Archives itself, with information on how to request microfiche or other documents. But click on the State Archives link, and you'll have access to a great deal of information about the reference services, publications, collections, books and more. Even better are the online resources, including searchable databases of supreme court case files, marriage records (OLD marriages -- 1666-1799), with more to come. There's also a link to Imaged Collections, including military documents, slave records, photos, among other things.

Office of Management and Budget
Next up on our tour of federal government sites is the OMB, which is timely, given that they're working on the 2008 budget right now. In addition to information about the agency, most of the site is taken up with information on the upcoming budget -- most pages are available in PDF files. The OMB also has several RSS feeds to which you can subscribe -- including Press Releases, Memoranda, Statements of Administration Policy, and Budget Supplementals and Amendments. That last feed could be particularly useful, if you want regular and timely updates whenever the budget is amended.

Taecan
Taecan is an online CLE provider, offering courses for lawyers in 18 states. Some of the states offer more courses than others. Just click on the course catalog, select a course, and you're watching CLE. Courses range between $20-$50 per credit hour. There are probably more comprehensive CLE sites, but Taecan has some nice options.

Tyndall Report
Here's a guy with a lot of time on his hands: Mark Tyndall has personally watched every single weekday network nightly newscast since the summer of 1987. He blogs about each newscast every day, and provides links to the stories. It's a nice way to find the previous day's stories, and Mark also provides a good overview of the network offerings, and how they cover the news.

United Nations World Conservation Monitoring Centre
Part of the United Nations Environmental Programme, the WCMC's mission is to "evaluate and highlight the many values of biodiversity and put authoritative biodiversity at the centre of decision-making." And there's certainly no lack of biodiversity information here. Check out the interactive maps or section on parks and protected areas, or review the various international agreements on biodiversity. If conservation is your thing, you'll find a wealth of resources here.

Expert Village provides amateur videos on expert subjects - thousands of how-to videos are here. Today on the home page you'll learn how about public speaking in a business setting, double cross choke holds in Brazilian ju-jitsu, and carjacking defense moves.

Looking for a limerick on a particular subject? C'mon, you know you are. Look no further than OEDILF -- it's the Omnificent English Dictionary in Limerick Form. Just type in your keywords, and maybe one of the 37,000 limericks indexed will fit the bill.

Well, that’s it for Issue #259 – I hope you liked it! If you did, pass this along to anyone you think might be interested, and encourage him or her to subscribe. Also, feel free to drop me an e-mail any time if you have questions, or if you have websites or other topics you want included in a future issue.

Subscription Information: If you want to keep on receiving issues of the Internet Legal Research Weekly, send me an e-mail at tom(at)inter-alia(dot)net, or visit Inter Alia and sign up there! If you no longer want to receive the newsletter, just click on the link at the bottom of this newsletter.

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Questions? New websites? Just want to talk? Send me an e-mail at tom(at)inter-alia(dot)net.